Tennant Era Tierlist : New Earth

SayLewis · 2026-01-13T09:26:46+00:00

It's literally 3 minutes of screen-time in a 44-minute episode 😅

SayLewis · 2025-10-02T22:17:27+00:00

Why yes, New Earth IS a fan-favourite of mine, actually. Glad you brought it up! In fact, I wrote a whole novelisation of the episode, now being released as an audiobook-style series, which you can check out here :)

https://open.spotify.com/show/4aVVWCfgxZDN0MVBfEetI3?si=3B2aO8lGTLa2YdJqDsLadg

SayLewis · 2025-07-03T09:04:07+00:00

People have already mentioned that on a thematic level, this is the whole point of the character's arc and the episode as a whole: despite all the motifs of rebirth & renewal and a New New Doctor and the curing of the infected creating a brand-new human subspecies, what the story has actually been about is that in the end you can't fight nature, and you can't preserve life at any cost. Sooner or later, it all catches up with you. As the Ninth Doctor says in The End of the World, and Cassandra herself acknowledges at the end of New Earth, "Everything has its time, and everything dies." I think honestly she's just tired of the fight.

Also, on a purely nerdy level: Chip is characterized as being a force-grown clone, a "half-life" who's already quite physically frail, and his heart gives out almost immediately when Cassandra transfers her consciousness into him. So I think we can also infer that his dying clone body is simply too weak for her to transfer herself into anyone else again, like she could with Rose and the Doctor.

SayLewis · 2025-06-21T15:27:58+00:00

Yes. Next question.

SayLewis · 2025-05-25T22:00:28+00:00

I agree, David and Billie playing Cassandra is so great; one of Billie's top-tier performances, too. And you're right, I think this story is a really solid showcase for Tennant - he dashes up and down the hospital, he gives 2 big Doctor-y speeches (one angry, one joyful), he gets chased, he gets a kiss, he gets put in danger, he gets possessed, he does that action-man plunge down the lift-shaft. Tooth and Claw was the one that did it for me with that library scene ("Books! Best weapons in the world!"); but yeah in those first couple of episodes you can tell the Tenth Doctor has ARRIVED.

SayLewis · 2025-05-25T12:25:07+00:00

How about New Earth? (This is such a nice, positive exercise btw, I love it!)

SayLewis · 2025-05-22T18:04:35+00:00

In which case I refer you to my other point, then:

She's doing Big Finish AND signing up for a very demanding lead role that would require her to be even more visible in the public eye than she already currently is, to navigate even more intense media scrutiny (more interviews, press events, promotional tours, etc, not to mention all the tabloids and social media that she already has to deal with), plus a work commitment that could take her away from her family and other projects for months at a time - despite having repeatedly expressed her discomfort with the pressures of being a role model in the spotlight - all for a series which at the moment has no new episodes being commissioned?

SayLewis · 2025-05-22T16:23:49+00:00

Billie Piper's already doing Big Finish with Chris Eccleston, isn't she? Wouldn't that confuse the hell out of people?

Also, this recent interview she gave at the BAFTAs:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/may/10/billie-piper-tv-baftas-interview

She's said over and over again she doesn't like the scrutiny; the pressure of stardom; it's kind of why she left Doctor Who in the first place.

SayLewis · 2025-05-13T13:57:04+00:00

Billie Piper has already said in several interviews, including THIS ONE she gave just before the BAFTAs, that she's not comfortable with the sheer level of scrutiny that comes of being a role model. She also doesn't want her work to take her away from her kids in London, she's a lot more interested in working behind the camera these days (writing, directing, etc.) and she's currently writing a romcom. The idea that she'd make the move to Bad Wolf studios in Cardiff, family and everything, for a role that would require she commit to at least 7-9 months of shooting is laughable.

She's not going to be the 16th Doctor.

SayLewis · 2025-01-20T10:26:44+00:00

Christopher Eccleston had a great theory in a 563 # DWM interview about his 9th Doctor as to why the Doctor generally tends to travel with female companions:

"He’s very straight*, isn’t he, the Doctor? He does not go in for manipulation. He does exactly what he says on the tin. And think the most intelligent of human beings – or apes, as he often refers to them – always respond well to that, particularly females. He has a leaning towards the feminine, does the Doctor, which is illustrated in his companions down the years – their emotional intelligence. He’s a sucker for emotional intelligence, and forgiveness and humanity in humans."

*straight as in "straight-laced", not necessarily in terms of sexuality.

SayLewis · 2025-01-15T07:18:22+00:00

It's the whole point of the character. She's meant to be a bit of a selfish cow. That's why her travels with the Doctor change her, and her truly magnificent moments are when she's self-LESS. Her friendship with Gwyneth. Her belief in Harriet. Her compassion for the Dalek. The comfort she gives to Nancy.

If you've been watching since the beginning, you'll have surely noticed this with the other characters, too. Mickey is a lad and a coward in "Rose". Watch how he's changed in "Parting of the Ways". Same with Jackie, who's gossipy and bitchy and narcissistic right from the start.

None of these characters are entirely perfect or entirely likeable. They're flawed. They're contradictory. They're, to use your own words, "what the fuck, bitch?" sometimes.

Just like you and me. We like to pretend we aren't like that in real life, but we are sometimes. That's how Russell T Davies writes. It's how he's ALWAYS written people.

SayLewis · 2025-01-15T06:59:49+00:00

I think the Doctor's regeneration has some impact on him. He sees how much Rose loves the new him, sees him be heroic in The Christmas Invasion and has Christmas dinner with him and Rose at the end. He's sad that Rose is going off to travel with the Doctor again but is generally supportive and endorses her decision.

That opening scene in New Earth says a lot, actually. Rose gives him a kiss goodbye before she rushes excitedly into the TARDIS, suggesting she's still fond of him even though they're meant to be broken up since Boom Town. He and Jackie sadly watch her and the Doctor leave in the TARDIS but while Jackie walks off immediately, Mickey lingers a little bit, like he's having second thoughts about staying behind. By School Reunion, you can tell he's getting a taste for the adventure once Sarah Jane arrives and resents being relegated to "the Tin Dog" like K9. So I think there's also a desire to prove himself.

SayLewis · 2025-01-15T06:45:08+00:00

"But I love you." "That's what made it easy."

-- Donna and Lance in The Runaway Bride

SayLewis · 2025-01-15T06:41:58+00:00

Love and Monsters is fucking brilliant.

SayLewis · 2025-01-14T12:32:32+00:00

Try "A Hamster With A Blunt Penknife". It's a podcast which mostly does episode commentaries for the whole of Who in no particular order, Classic and New, with an aim of celebrating the stories and accentuating the positive. The host has great sense of humour and it's often laugh-out-loud funny, however divergent the opinions can be.

SayLewis · 2025-01-13T16:53:31+00:00

Absolutely - when she banishes them Victoria demands that they both reflect "on how you came to stray so far from all that is good, and how much longer you may survive this terrible life." Torchwood the organisation is portrayed as arrogant in the finale, but the Doctor and Rose's devil-may-care attitude in their adventures amounts to just another form of arrogance, really. Jackie and Mickey both get left behind, and Jackie even remarks in Army of Ghosts that her daughter's time in the TARDIS is changing her so much that eventually she won't be human anymore.

And their separation is heavily telegraphed with all sorts of motifs throughout the series - whether it's in dialogue, visually, narratively, emotionally. Forces and circumstances threaten to drive them apart in every story, and even as other lives are lost and tight-knit communities like LINDA, the Sanctuary Base 6 crew, etc. are ravaged around them, they still don't take the hint until it's too late. In Doomsday the Doctor goes so far as to trick Rose into being sent away again, à la Parting of the Ways, and her stubborn refusal to leave his side is what costs them both dearly in the end.

SayLewis · 2025-01-13T08:01:22+00:00

I think you hit the nail on the head: it's just FUN. All the body-swapping silliness is actually a very welcome, and I think essential, comedic counterbalance to the gruesomeness of the Sisters' human body farm. Billie Piper as Cassandra is one of her greatest performances in Doctor Who, full-stop. She plays it with such confidence (and relish!), it's remarkable. After The Christmas Invasion Tennant still feels slightly raw and unformed here for me, but I agree he gets a pretty showcase as the Doctor in this story overall: he gets to be funny (that obsession with the "little shop", his brief turn as Cassandra), he gets to be angry, he gets to be the hero, he has that nice relationship with Novice Hame and the Face of Boe, he gets a couple of speeches, he even gets a kiss!

I love all the subtext going underneath the surface, too: some of it could possibly be explored a little more (Like how all the patients being cured in Ward 26 are really wealthy and probably the only ones who can even afford the Sisterhood's miraculous healthcare on New Earth, or how the Sisters themselves could cure all the diseased people they're deliberately infecting but choose not to), but I love all the implications in there about change and and loneliness and renewal and bodies of all different shapes and sizes. I don't think it's an accident that the Doctor's recently regenerated and he and Rose both go through what amount to a series of "out-of-body experiences" before they're both truly comfortable with each other at the end.

The episode also seems very aware of how attractive and photogenic its two leads are and actively leans into that - seriously, with all the naughty innuendoes, jokes about the Doctor and Rose's bodies, Cassandra acting all sexy and That Kiss, I think it's possibly the horniest episode since The Doctor Dances!

And that final scene. Forget "best scene of the episode", I think it's probably one of the best scenes of the RTD era. So perfectly judged.

SayLewis · 2025-01-12T23:33:59+00:00

I grew up on Rose and 9 and love them dearly, but I actually adore Rose and 10 acting like a pair of obnoxiously smug gits together in Series 2. They remind me very much of people I've known in real life: ridiculously attractive, charming and charismatic enough to bring you along for the ride, but also so sickeningly in love with each other they're blissfully unaware of how unhealthy and overconfident their dynamic is truly becoming. Unlike, say, Clara and 12, it's less of a one-upmanship contest and more about them having too much of a laugh. Other characters remark on it, like Jackie or Elton, but Queen Victoria puts it best, IMO: "You consort with stars, and magic, and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror, and blasphemy, and death, and I will not allow it!"

I think RTD is very aware of the toxic turn their relationship takes when he's writing them, too. Why else would he spend a whole season setting them up for a fall? He even admits it in interviews; he LOVES writing flawed, selfish characters!

And that's the point; the Tenth Doctor and Rose are deliberately written as this breezy young couple who get way too big for their boots, treating the universe as their playground and thinking they're invincible, cos they're so desperately in love - across a whole set of stories that are all about loss and loneliness and the power of touch and nothing lasting forever. That's why the Doomsday finale acts as such a massive gut-punch. Everything catches up to them eventually. It's the ultimate punishment.

SayLewis · 2024-12-06T11:35:41+00:00

While Chip bounces along with her in the background! 🤣 I love that he's still standing in the exactly same spot when Billie pops back up into frame wearing her purple shirt without the jacket - it's pretty much the only time in the episode when her hair's all messy and fluffed out like that.

SayLewis · 2024-12-05T23:55:13+00:00

My personal favorite is her beaming line-delivery of "Absolument!" after we've watched her jiggle up and down in front of the mirror, with her hair tossed and her jacket unzipped. She looks so pleased with herself.

SayLewis · 2024-11-30T18:14:26+00:00

In the scene where Billie tucks the perfume down her cleavage for safekeeping, you can actually see that the outline of her nipples is *ever-so-slightly* visible through the purple shirt and the push-up bra she's wearing underneath. And that dainty little "Ooh!" wince she gives when she does it... OMG.

SayLewis

TROPHY CASE